


if i wait 'till my tomorrow comes (is the waiting all i've ever done)

by AndyBoy



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon Compliant, Dimension Travel, Fix-It, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Suicide, One Shot, Rated T for Trashmouth, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier-centric, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, and also some alcohol? but its not underage drinking, brief references to crack cocaine but its not like actually a thing., but its not shippy sorry reddies, cause i didnt want to bore you with the details, deep conversations with urself, in a way lol, my pocket knife headcanon (which i am very passionate abt) made its way into this, the lore is very clear in my head but in the fic its explained very ambiguously, youll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21603163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndyBoy/pseuds/AndyBoy
Summary: The man had crouched down, and was squatting at eye level with Richie. Richie, who had his knees pulled up to his chest, fearful tears pricking his eyes, and a hand clasped over his mouth to keep himself from breathing too loud. God, but he was pathetic.“What the fuck,” the man repeated, breathlessly. “Well, this is definitely some clown shit.”(Richie Tozier is 13 years old, and he's just made a real-life blood oath. So why the fuck is he in some random California apartment with a tall, sad-looking man who claims it's the year 2017?)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 141
Collections: time travel time





	if i wait 'till my tomorrow comes (is the waiting all i've ever done)

**Author's Note:**

> i swore id never give a fanfic an all lowercase song lyric title but we all do things we regret at 2:53 in the morning
> 
> this took like four hours to write and i didnt edit it or get a beta or anything. this just kinda spat itself out. i am sorry.
> 
> title from 'older' by ben platt bc that's a decent song for this fic
> 
> blows a kiss towards the dumpster. for richie tozier.

Making a blood pact with six of his closest friends wasn’t _exactly_ on Richie’s summer ‘89 bucket list, but Richie was getting very good at taking things as they came, and so when Bill approached him with the shard of glass, Richie didn’t pull his hand away. He let Bill draw blood, and then shook his hand, hissing in pain as Bill moved on to Eddie.

The day was sunny, and golden-tinted in the afternoon light. Richie was tired, he’d seen things he’d never wanted to see, he’d done things he’d never wanted to have done, and he was filled with so much love for the six people surrounding him that he thought he could burst.

“W-we’ll all come back,” Bill said finally, rejoining the circle. “Say it, make a p-p-promise to yourself, wh-whatever that promise n-n-needs to be.” Richie took his friend’s hands and took a deep breath.

“We’re _all_ going to come back,” Richie muttered to himself, squeezing his eyes shut. He was sure the others couldn’t hear him, as they were all whispering their own promises. He wasn’t sure why he felt so strongly about it being all seven of them. He just knew that the promise wasn’t worth making if the Losers Club wasn’t whole. “All of us.”

A small gust of wind rose from what felt like underneath his feet. A chill ran through the air.

When Richie opened his eyes, he wasn’t standing on a sunlit patch of grass. His palms were starkly empty, where they had previously been gripping his friend’s hands.

Richie let out a strangled gasp and stumbled backwards, pressing his back to the wall, where nothing could sneak up on him. Dark gray walls stared back at him, unadorned with photos. He was standing in a sleek, sparse, futuristic apartment. There was a large dark rectangle that Richie might have mistaken for a television if it weren’t thinner than his pinkie finger. The couches were white and squared-off, looking firm and clean. A large digital clock blinked at him from an open-air kitchen. The clock read 12:39. It was dark in the apartment.

Richie swallowed and took a small step away from the wall. “Is this more clown shit?” he called. “Because I just fucking killed you, and my hand is still bleeding, and I’m gonna be really pissed if I have to deal with your shit.”

He was met with resounding silence. Richie kicked the leg of the coffee table gently. 

“Hey, I don’t know how I got here, but I’m 13 years old, and I’m bleeding out, so I’m gonna uh...borrow some bandages, if you have them.” His voice rang out through the seemingly empty apartment once more.

Nobody answered. Richie padded softly through the apartment, stopping to try a door that might have led to the bathroom. He pushed the door open, and was met with an empty bedroom, with nothing on the walls, and a stripped-bare bed. He closed the door softly and stepped into the next room, which _was_ the bathroom. He tugged open the medicine cabinet, ignoring the sinking feeling in his gut, and grabbed a roll of gauze and an ace bandage. He ran the cut under cold water and wrapped it, unsure what other measures one was supposed to take for a blood oath wound.

Richie stepped out of the bathroom and glanced around. If he could find a telephone, he could call his parents. Or maybe Bill. 

Bill was probably the better option; Richie just hoped he could remember Bill’s parents’ number. 

Richie stepped softly back into the kitchen and began running his hands over the walls, looking for a phone. 

None jumped out at him. Richie, growing frustrated with the darkness, flipped on a light switch and continued his search.

Seriously, what kind of futuristic-ass apartment didn’t have a phone? The microwave oven (or what Richie assumed was the microwave oven) was sleek and shiny and had more buttons than Richie would have known what to do with. The fridge had a small television screen embedded in the door.

This was some janky-ass futuristic bullshit.

“This is some janky-ass futuristic bullshit,” Richie said out loud, the silence making him tense.

A board creaked down the hall and the faint clack of a light switch being flipped sounded loud to Richie’s ears. 

“Shit,” Richie whispered, ducking down and crawling under the counter.

A pair of legs walked past him not two seconds after Richie had settled. They were adult legs, hairy, wearing boxer shorts and mismatched socks.

Richie tried to slow his breathing.

“What the fuck’s going on out here,” he heard a voice mutter. “I heard a voice. I know you’re here. Are you some rabid fan? ‘Cause I don’t know if you’ve read the tabloids, but I’m a crack addict now. Probably not safe for you to be here.”

Great. Just fucking great, Richie had been impossibly transported to a futuristic apartment occupied by a fucking crack cocaine addict. Richie curled even further in on himself.

Then, the voice said something that made Richie’s blood run cold. “Or is this some more clown shit? I thought that bitch was dead.”

“Clown?” Richie yelped, before he could stop himself. He clapped a hand over his mouth, trembling. 

The crackhead was going to find him and he was going to be eaten alive (or whatever crackheads do to 13 year old boys) and his friends would never know what had happened to him or where he had gone and—

“What the fuck?”

The man had crouched down, and was squatting at eye level with Richie. Richie, who had his knees pulled up to his chest, fearful tears pricking his eyes, and a hand clasped over his mouth to keep himself from breathing too loud. God, but he was pathetic.

“What the fuck,” the man repeated, breathlessly. “Well, this is definitely some clown shit.”

“The fuck do you mean clown shit?” Richie asked, before he could think better of it. “Are you from Derry too?”

“What? What the fuck? Yeah, I’m from Derry. Come out from under there, but don’t fucking take any steps closer to me. I bullied you to death once and I can do it again.”

Richie started to untangle himself and crawl out from under the counter. He stood slowly, barely daring to make any sudden moves. The man stood on the other side of the kitchen island, staring at Richie. Richie stared back.

“You don’t look like a coke addict,” Richie said finally.

The man snorted. “Gee, thanks, you dumb clown bitch.”

“Where the fuck do you get off talking to a kid like that?” Richie demanded. “I could report you.”

“Right, as if you’re an actual kid. Don’t think I don’t know who you are.”

“I really don’t get what you’re implying here, fuckass,” Richie said. 

The man sighed and turned, reaching into his cupboard and pulling out a bottle of vodka. He grabbed a coca-cola from the fridge, or Richie thought it was a coca-cola, it was really different looking from what Richie was used to. The man poured a quarter of the bottle of coke into a glass, and then topped it off with just a little more vodka than one should theoretically put in a mixed drink. The man noticed Richie staring, and reached for another glass. 

“You want one?” he asked. “I’d feel bad about offering this to a child, but you’re either a hallucination, a demon clown, or the manifestation of my deepest regrets in my final moments as I finally drink myself into an alcoholic coma, so I think it’s fine.”

“I am fucking none of those things,” Richie said sharply. “Don’t you dare compare me to that bitchass clown.”

The man laughed into his drink. “Sure, okay.”

“I will take that drink, though,” Richie said. 

The man shook his head. “Nuh-uh, clown-ass. You decide to masquerade as a 12-year-old, you get to be treated like a 12-year-old too.”

“I’m 13,” Richie said. “Can I finish the coke at least?”

“Knock yourself out,” the man said, sliding the rest of the bottle across the table towards Richie. Richie examined it carefully before taking a tentative sip.

“So,” Richie started. “I’m obviously trapped in some hell dimension. Maybe I’ve died of blood loss, I don’t fucking know how much blood oaths are supposed to bleed. But your refrigerator has a television screen on it, and your coke tastes fucking gross. If you’re some kind of unholy being overseeing my hellish purgatory, can I maybe get a name?”

“Jesus christ, you must be a hallucination,” the man said into his drink. “The clown doesn’t play long-cons.”

“And just how do you know about the clown anyway? Where are we? Only kids can see the clown, dipshit, and you look like you’ve got one foot in the grave.”

“Hey, I am forty-one years old, you little asshole.”

“Oh, my bad. Both feet and a cane in the grave.”

“I’m only twenty-eight years older than you,” the man said, and then laughed to himself as if it were an inside joke. “Or, twenty-seven, I guess.”

“So this is some clown shit,” Richie said quietly. “Twenty-seven years…”

“That’s my line, dipshit,” the man said, waving his now empty glass at Richie. He grabbed another coke from the fridge and mixed himself a new drink. “I know for a fact you’re some clown shit, which sucks, ‘cause we all really thought we killed you this time.”

“I am not some clown shit. I just killed some clown shit. I just made a blood oath about some clown shit. I’m 13 years old, I’m fucking tired, I’ve almost died like three times this summer, and now this janky old crackhead is refusing to give me vodka even after he offered it and accusing me of being in kahoots with the one thing that’s literally made my life an actual living hell. If you’re going to behave this way, jackass, I’ll walk out the fucking door right now. Actually—do you have a phone? I don’t remember my friend’s number but I’m gonna try to call him anyway.”

“Sure thing, kiddo,” the man said, slightly stunned, and reached into his pocket to pull out a small rectangular object.

Richie took it. “What the fuck is this,” he said loudly. 

The man rolled his eyes. “It’s a phone, dipshit. It’s 2017, who doesn’t know how to use a phone?”

Richie froze in his inspection of the object. “I’m sorry, what year did you say it was?”

“It’s 2017?” the man said, checking his watch. “Yeah, it’s 2017. Which you fucking know, you shitty-ass clown.”

“It’s not 2017,” Richie said. “It’s definitely not 2017. It’s 1989. You’re off your fucking rocker, old man.”

The man rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure, it’s 1989. Twenty-eight years ago. Like I’d fucking fall for your shit. Should I call Mike about this? I feel like I should call Mike about this.”

“Mike Hanlon?” Richie asked excitedly. 

The man nodded. “Give me back the phone, Pennywise.”

“Jesus christ, old man, we don’t say the ‘P’ word,” Richie said, handing the supposed phone back.

The man started tapping on the screen, moving his fingers across it expertly. Richie wished he could see from the other side of the kitchen island, because _what the fuck_.

“Okay, Mike’s up, which he really shouldn’t be, because of his time zone, but he’s up. He’s gonna facetime us.”

“What timezone is he in?”

“Not this one. Fuck if I know where Mike is these days.”

“What timezone are we in?”

“We’re in California, clown-nuts. Figure it out.”

The phone vibrated briefly, and the man grabbed it and pressed the screen again, before propping it up against the almost-empty vodka bottle.

“Mikey,” the man greeted. “Sorry to wake y—”

“You didn’t wake me.” The voice on the other end was simultaneously incredibly comforting and startlingly foreign. Richie frowned at the phone. Whoever that was, it wasn’t Mike. The voice was also frantic, almost terrified. “We killed It, I know we killed It, we absolutely killed It, what do you _mean_ It’s in your apartment, man?”

“I mean, It’s pretty non-malicious this time around,” the man said calmly. “All It’s done is drink my coke and call me old.”

“You are old,” Richie said. “Let me talk to him.”

The man beckoned for Richie to join him, and Richie did, quickly bounding over to the other side of the island.

The man whose face appeared on the small screen wasn’t Mike Hanlon, but it wasn’t _not_ Mike Hanlon either. The man had the same creases around his lips from his kind smile, the same care-worn eyes, and the same laugh lines. And now, that man’s face was twisted into something as achingly familiar as Mike Hanlon’s terrified face.

“Richie, get away from that, we don’t know what it is—”

“Woah, calm down, Not-Mike, it’s just an old guy,” Richie said. 

At the same time, the crackhead said, “It's not doing anything, Michaelangelo, it just showed up at my apartment and started bitching at me.”

They looked at each other. “What...what is your name, anyway?” Richie asked slowly. 

The man pulled his thin-framed glasses off of his face and rubbed his eyes. “My name’s Richie. Richie Tozier. I kinda thought you knew that.”

What the fuck.

“What the fuck!” Richie said out loud, incredulity lacing his tone. “You’re not fucking Richie Tozier, I’m Richie Tozier you clown-ass piece of shit! I get it! I get it now! We never made it out of Neibolt! That blood oath shit was a hallucination! And now you’re going to keep me down here in your weird futuristic sewer apartment for the rest of time!”

“Richie, hang on,” the man on the phone said. “What if...shit, Richie, what if that’s actually you?”

The man, _Adult Richie_ , turned to the phone and scowled. “Right, like that makes any fucking sense, Mike. What, my 13 year old self just turs the fuck up at my house and drinks all my pepsi and calls me a bitch?”

“It was coke, not pepsi,” Richie supplied.

“It’s a meme, kiddo,” the man said.

“The fuck is a meme?” Richie asked.

“I don’t have time for this,” the man said. 

“Rich,” Not-Mike said. “How about you sit down with Richie and ask him to tell you everything?”

“Who are you talking to?” the man asked, pointing between himself and Richie.

“You’re Rich, adult Rich. It just sounds less juvenile. For the purposes of this, I mean. You can be Richie again once mini-you gets gone.”

“Fucking hell,” Rich grumbled. “Bad enough I have to drunkenly face a hallucinatory representation of my own repression, but now I gotta go by _Rich,_ too.”

“Rich,” Not-Mike said. “Talk to the kid. Get the story. I’ll do some digging and see if I can find any records of anything like this in my digital library.”

“All right, Mikey,” Rich said tiredly. “Leave me alone with the clown, I see how it is.”

“I really don’t think that’s the clown, Rich. I think Richie is...Richie. Hopefully I can find the passage I’m thinking of, but there might be some precedent for it. I’ll call you back.”

“Okay, sure, thanks, Mike.” Rich pressed a large red button on the display of his phone and slipped the darkened device into his pocket. “I guess we’re gonna have a heart-to-heart, mini-me. Although, really, if you are the clown, could you just take a bite out of my face and do away with me and get it over with? I’m not digging the long-game approach.”

“My best friend just got a bite taken out of his face by that clown, so how about you fucking watch it, asshole,” Richie said, letting Rich lead him into the living room. 

“Shit, right,” Rich muttered. “Stanley. Stanley fucking Uris.”

“Yeah! That’s my guy!” Richie said proudly. “Stanley Urine, Stanthony, Stantonio, Standrew—”

“Yeah, I get it,” Rich snapped. “Stan. Way to fucking rub it in my face. You’ve gotta be the clown, no other reason to be such a dick.”

“What?” Richie asked, thoroughly confused. “Rub what in?”

“Don’t play dumb with me. No, no, shit, sorry, Mike wants me to talk to you as if you’re actually just...my thirteen year old self. What, did you time travel? Is this some Back to the Future bullshit? Had that even come out yet in ‘89?”

“Of course Back to the Future is out, old man,” Richie said. “And I don’t fucking know, it’s not like I’ve been experimenting on a car with a disgraced nuclear physicist, I just got finished making a blood oath.”

“Right, okay, tell me the story. How did you get here?”

“Fuck if I know, _Rich,_ as far as I’m concerned, this is just a blood-loss induced fever dream. Basically, we killed a clown, we got Stan some fucking medical attention, Eddie showered, all that good shit, and then we met up again and Bill made us swear that if It comes back, we come back too. We shook on it with blood, and he made us each promise something different to ourselves.

“So I’m standing there, and I’m whispering to myself, uh...something. A promise.”

“I know what you promised, Richie, I am you. It’s not embarrassing.”

“Right, well,” Richie rubbed his hands on his shorts, trying to wipe the sweat from his palms. “I promised that all seven of us would come back, which is stupid, because I have no controll over that, but—”

“No!” Rich leapt to his feet. “You do! You do have control! If you can get back to Derry, back to 1989, you can fix everything.” He grabbed Richie by the shoulders. “That’s why you’re here!”

“Excuse me?” Rich was very up-close-and-personal, and as much as Richie hated to admit it, he could see himself in the man. That was certainly his nose, and his hair, and he’d spent long enough looking at his own eyes in the mirror to recognize them, even if they weren’t being magnified by his coke-bottle glasses. Rich looked like Richie. Like, a _lot_ like Richie. Like a forty-one-year-old Richie. Which kinda made sense, Richie supposed.

“You can fix all of it, if you can get back to your time. You can prevent it. You can stop it all! You can save them!”

“Save _who_?” Richie asked, voice rising to match Rich’s yell.

The phone buzzed. Richie, unused to the technology, jumped, and relaxed when he realized what was making the noise. 

Rich grabbed the phone and swiped his finger across it. “Mike!”

“Rich, hey. Is Richie still there?”

“Yeah, he’s here, Mike, I’ve figured it out! I know why he’s here!”

“I do too. But you go first, Richie, I want to hear your theory.”

“Mike, if we can get him back to ‘89, he can fix _everything._ You realize that, right? He can tell you to remember to tell Stan not to take a bath, or he can go in person to fetch him, or in the cistern! Mike, if he knows what’s coming—”

“Rich, I need you to take several deep breaths. I need you to match my breathing. Have you explained everything to him?”

“No!” Richie piped up. “I don’t know jack shit! Bath? Cistern?”

“We’ll explain in a second. I want to tell you what I learned from my research.”

“Tell me, Mike. Talk to me.”

“When I saw Richie there with you, I was struck suddenly with this passage I remembered from one of the Derry history books, one that referred to a...timeline reset. Or, more like, a timeline split, initiated by one who is made aware of the timeline. It’s a time-honored tradition, inviting oneself to perceive the future. To inhabit the future, so one knows how to prevent it, when the timeline splits by one altering their actions. It’s done by making a blood sacrifice and...a promise.”

Rich let out a bark of laughter. “Only my dumb ass would somehow accidentally perform a blood ritual. Richie, Richie, little guy, mini-me, small-fries, listen to me.”

“I’m listening, jesus christ,” Richie said.

“We’re gonna find a way to send you back and you’re gonna fix everything. It’ll be okay.”

“Rich, the kid is 13. Calm down a bit.”

“Calm down? Mike, you’re asking me to calm down? You know how it’s been! You know I... _fuck._ ”

Richie was surprised to see tears leaking from his adult counterpart’s eyes. 

“Hey, old man?” Richie asked, sliding closer to the guy on the couch. “What’s wrong? What do I need to fix?”

“St-Stan and...and _fuck,_ ”

Ice slowly spread through Richie’s veins. “Stan? What happens to Stan? What do I need to fix?”

“Rich, let me explain, I know this is hard—” Not-Mike said.

“No! I can do it!” Rich was crying in earnest now. “I have to do it.”

“Rich, you know that even if Richie fixes things in his timeline, nothing will change in ours, right? Nothing will change, Rich. It’s his world that he’s fixing. He can’t bring them back.”

“Bring who back? Stan?” Richie looked back and forth between Rich and Not-Mike. “Why won’t anybody tell me anything?”

“It won’t fix our timeline…” Rich said, tears dripping onto his clasped hands. 

“But it could fix his,” Not-Mike urged. 

Rich nodded. He turned to Richie, eyes haunted and tear-stained. “Richie, in twenty-seven years, in 2016, you have to go back to Derry.”

“And kill the bitch for good,” Richie said. 

“That’s right. We’ll tell you how to do that in a second. But you’re gonna get a call from Mike, who never left Derry. He’s the one you have to tell this all to, because you’re going to forget about Derry, you’re going to forget this ever happened.”

“What, why?”

“Clown magic. Listen to me. You have to tell Mike, your Mike, to not call Stan when the time comes. You have to tell him that, when he calls you, he has to give you Stan’s address so you can go and pick him up.”

“Really, Rich?” Mike asked. “I mean, I can go in person, the other me, I mean—”

“You have to stay in Derry and coordinate things. And Richie will remember Stan, and he’ll remember this when you tell him to go pick up Stan. Richie, this is incredibly important. Do not let Stan take a bath. Do not let him near any sharp objects. Do not let him out of your sight.” Rich’s face was desperate, his eyes wide. The man was almost trembling.

“Why?” Richie asked. Although something aching and hollow in his gut told him that he already knew.

“Stan—” Rich choked out a sob and buried his face in his hands.

“Sorry, Richie. It’s been hardest on Rich out of all of us. Our Stan killed himself when he got the call. I blame myself, but nobody’s been affected more than Rich.”

“Stan...Stan _what,_ ” Richie breathed. “He fucking _what_?”

“He slit his own fucking wrists, Richie,” Rich said sharply. “In the bath. His wife was devastated. _We_ were devastated.”

“That’s not all, though,” Mike said. “Rich, maybe I should explain this one. How about you get a glass of water? Richie, can you follow him and make sure it’s water and not vodka?”

Richie nodded, standing to go with Rich into the kitchen, something hollow echoing around his chest. He watched Rich pour the glass of water and set it down on the counter. 

“You should go back in,” Rich said. “I can’t be there for this.”

Richie cleared his throat nervously and walked back into the living room, where he took Rich’s spot on the couch and looked expectantly at Not-Mike.

“Except for Stan, all of us came back,” Not-Mike said, not wasting any time. “But when we went into Neibolt to fight it, only five of us came out. You can stop that. You can save him.”

“Save who,” Richie whispered. He knew, of course he knew. Nobody in the world could possibly have made adult Richie react the way he did, no one except—

“Eddie,” Mike finished. “Eddie died in the cistern. We had to drag you away from his body, kicking and screaming.”

Richie let out a humourless laugh. “That sounds like me,” he said wetly, trying to blink back tears. 

“I know this is a lot to put on you, Richie,” Mike said. “You’re only 13, and you’ve just got off of the most traumatic experience of your life to date. But right now, you’re the only hope for the Stan and Eddie of your timeline.”

“How does Eddie die,” Richie asked, tonelessly. Eddie fucking Kaspbrak, this tiny dynamite asshole who could talk faster than Richie could, and could cuss circles around him if he was angry. Images of Eddie, (his Eddie, 13-year-old Eddie Kaspbrak) bloodstained and lifeless, flashed across his vision. He felt sick to his stomach.

“Do you need a moment, Richie?” Mike asked kindly, and god, when had Richie started referring to him as Mike instead of Not-Mike?

“No,” Richie said. “I need to know.”

“You get caught in the deadlights, and Eddie pulls you out of them. You’re on the ground, and he’s on top of you, and he’s saying that he thinks he really did it, that he killed it for real. And then he gets stabbed through the stomach.”

“Fuck,” Richie muttered, pulling his glasses off and rubbing at his eyes, remembering that he had seen his older self do the exact same thing earlier. 

“Richie,” Mike started, then stopped. “Richie, I think we should continue this in the morning. It’s just past one where you are, and I think you need time to sleep and process this.”

“What if I wake up and I’m just right back there? I need to know everything, Mike, I need to know everything about the future, everything I can do to prevent this. Rich said he’d tell me how to kill It, I need to know that, you know I need to know that.”

“Calm down, Richie,” Mike said. “There’s no reason you should suddenly revert back to your time, it’s a whole other ritual to return, but if it makes you feel better, we’ll tell you how we killed It now.”

“We bullied it to death,” Rich’s voice sounded from the other room. He walked back in, clutching his half-empty glass of water. “We made it feel small.”

“We made it feel small,” Mike repeated. 

“You...bullied it,” Richie said, trying to make sure he heard them correctly.

“We bullied it. We told It that it was nothing but a copycat, a clown, a bully, a useless piece of shit. Then we ripped its heart out of its chest and crushed it.”

“What the fuck,” Richie said.

Rich snorted and joined him on the couch. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Can I go back now?” Richie asked. “No offense but you guys are fucking nuts.”

“I’m you, and that’s Mike, you dumb piece of shit,” Rich said. 

“Yeah, well I guess Mike and I are fucking nuts. Mike, how do I get home?”

“Exact same way you got here, Richie.”

“My palm is still fucking bleeding, and you want me to cut into it again.”

“You got two hands, don’t you?” Rich asked.

Richie let out a breathy laugh. “Uh, yep, I do.”

“Jesus, Rich, don’t deprive the kid the use of both of his hands. Richie, anywhere you’re comfortable cutting on your body is fine. You just need to draw blood in the name of the promise you make. That’s all.”

“Right,” Richie muttered, standing. “That’s all. Rich, am I allowed to use your kitchen knives? Or do you have a shard of glass I can use,”

“Can’t believe Bill let us use a piece of broken glass,” Mike muttered over the phone. “So dangerous.”

“We were 13, Mike, we would’ve bounced back if they’d gotten infected.” Rich emerged from the kitchen, clutching a knife. “Uh, Mike? Mini-me?”

“Yeah?”

“What?”

“Are we going to tell the others that Li’l Dicky just showed up here?”

Mike snorted. “Li’l Dicky?”

“Cause he’s small, and Dick is short for Richard—it’s clever, fuck you Mike, stop laughing! I’m serious, do the others have to know?”

“I don’t...I don’t think so, Rich. They might be mad if they find out and we didn’t tell them, but it’s not something they _need_ to know. It’s up to you, man. Both of you, I guess. Richie, is there anything else you need me for?”

Richie shook his head. “Unless there’s anything else you want me to fix,” he said.

“No,” Mike said. “Unless...Hey, Richie?”

“Yes, Mike?”

“Can you tell my younger self that the ritual is a bust? I think it’ll save me a lot of trouble and plenty of guilt too.”

“The ritual is a bust. Got it,” Richie repeated. “Anything else to pass along?”

“I love you all,” Mike said. “So much. You don’t have to tell the others about this if you don’t want to, Richie. Apart from young me, anyway. But please know that I love you. Everybody loves everybody. If you think you’re weird for loving your friends so much, you’re not. We all feel the same.”

“He’s right,” Rich said. “Now go the fuck to bed, Mike, you should be asleep.”

“All right, Rich. Richie, you’re so strong. You know that, right? You can definitely do this.”

The screen went dark.

“And…” Rich hesitated. Richie met his eyes. Rich laughed briefly and rubbed his hands down his face. “And we’re gay, mini-me. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Richie’s heart constricted. “I’m not gay,” he said quickly.

“I am,” Rich said. “Dunno what that means for you, but I have a guess. I’m gay, little dude. I haven’t told the others yet, not officially, but I think they know. Because of…”

“Of Eddie,” Richie finished. “Shit, even twenty-seven years later?”

“Kid, with Eddie, for you and me, shit, dude, it’s _always._ ”

“It’s always,” Richie repeated. “And he’s dead.”

Rich laughed wetly. “He’s dead. It’s a year later, and he’s still dead. He’s not getting any deader than he is.”

“Stan is too.”

“In the same weekend.”

“My two closest friends in the same damn weekend,” Richie muttered. “Shit, is that what being an adult is like? Being so old that your friends are just dropping like flies around you?”

“Yeah, but with more erectile dysfunction. And I’m not old, jackass, I’m forty-one.”

“Sounds pretty old to me.”

“Yeah, but you’re thirteen. I bet twenty-nine sounds old to you.”

“That does sound pretty old, yeah.”

“Here’s a pocket knife,” Rich said. “It was a gift from Wentworth. When I graduated college. Cause he didn’t think I’d make it. I want you to have it.”

“Will I get to keep it?” Richie asked, taking the knife from his older counterpart’s large hands. 

“You didn’t lose your clothes when you came, did you? Just hold onto it. If it goes back with you, it goes back with you. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.”

“But why do you want me to have it?” Richie was genuinely confused. “If Went’s gonna give it to me anyway.”

“I want it to come from me, not from Went. I want that knife to have good memories in your timeline, not the memories I associate with it. And really, it’s high time I get rid of it. I’ve held on to bad memories for way too long.”

“Is Went still around?”

“Nah,” Rich scratched at his cheek absently. “He passed, like...four years back? We hadn’t spoken in a while, so it didn’t really hurt. Not like—” He cut himself off.

“Not like Eddie and Stan,” Richie said.

“Which is kinda fucked up, right?” Rich asked. “Like he was my dad. I knew him my whole life. I spent over twenty years without any memories of the Losers, or anything that happened in Derry. And then I get back home for the reunion of a fucking lifetime, and Stan’s not there, and it’s fucking devastating. I didn’t even remember him.”

“It’s been a year?”

“A little over a year, yeah.”

“Does it...still hurt? Eddie and Stan, I mean.”

“Of course, Richie,” Rich said softly. “Of course it still hurts. It’s never not gonna hurt. But it’s easier now.”

“But they’re my best friends,” Richie said, turning the pocket knife over in his hand. “I don’t think I’d get over it like that.”

“I’m not over it, kiddo. I’m fucking obviously not over it. But I have to keep going, and be like, happy and healthy or some bullshit like that. For their sakes.”

“For their sakes,” Richie echoed, eyes still fixed on the pocket knife.

“And you can save them,” Rich said.

“I can save them. My Stan, and my Eddie.”

“Yeah. You can do it. You can trust Mike.”

“I trust all the Losers. I’d trust them with my life.”

“I know.”

And Richie looked up at himself and he thought that _yeah,_ Rich did know. He knew in a way that nobody else would ever know.

“Thanks for the pocket knife, you dumb old bitch,” Richie said finally. “I’ll hold on to it, if I can.”

“Good memories this time around, okay, Richie? Promise me that?”

“I promise,” Richie said. He pulled out the knife blade and lifted it to his left forearm.

“I love you, kid,” Rich said. “You know that, right?”

“I’m you, dipshit,” Richie replied. 

“I know. I love you.”

“I just met you, so forgive me if I can’t say the same,” Richie said.

“I know. But I’ve been carrying you with me for a very long time. It’s safe for me to say that I love you.”

“Thanks,” Richie said, his throat dry. He coughed and swallowed and looked Rich firmly in the eyes. “Thank you.”

He brought the knife along his arm firmly, hissing in pain. A long red stripe followed the path he had drawn. Richie folded up the knife and slipped it into his pocket. He looked Rich in the eyes.

“I promise that all seven of us will make it out of this,” Richie said.”If I have anything to say about it.”

Richie only caught sight of Rich’s final sad smile briefly before the world was swept away from him in a shock of colors and motion. A wind rose from underneath him and a chill settled across his shoulders.

Richie blinked, and he was standing on a sunlit grassy hillside, surrounded by the people he loved more than anything else in the world.

The knife was heavy in his pocket.

**Author's Note:**

> i have a 30k+ stozier fic in the works so yall can watch out for that if that's your cup of tea.
> 
> hi im andrew and when i get an idea i Just Write It. i usually burn out before i finish so they never see the light of day but this one's finished so like, yall get to see it
> 
> kudos fuel my ego, comments fuel my desire to continue writing
> 
> if this gets enough love ill probably write a sequel but thats not a promise cause i dont trust myself.


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